Thursday, February 21, 2013

A mess

Its days like today when I see You are constantly healing me. Its when I am weak that you teach me. Oh how I need Your patience, and You are faithful Lord to provide. You teach me patience in the colds, the awful coughing and full blown snotty noses that keep coming every 5 minutes. There seems to not be enough Kleenex, toilet paper, or paper towels to keep clean the desks, floor, or bodies. 
   Your teaching me patience with the daily poopy pants, some days its every few hours with one girl. So good at teaching me patience with this nine year old girl who is forced, by her loving dorm mama exhausted and frustrated constantly washing her body and changing her clothes, to keep on a diaper, and continue teaching her and loving on her. Patience with the reality that her parents don't want to come to visit their daughter who misses and longs to have love and attention from her mama and papa.
   Its the broken days like Saturday when I thought could do everything on my own when you reminded me I cant and I shouldn't try.The healing is right there when I thought I could change a kid that is hurt deeper than I could see or imagine, longing for love and freedom. Thats when you step right into the middle of the situation. You were there that day in the middle of the fight we had, in both the physical and spiritual. You were whispering to me while inside I was screaming and burning with anger. Anger that is fully burning towards sin and Satan. Anger that I wrongly, oh so wrongly, directed at a boy, a lost boy to the point of a fight. Anger inside of him, confusion inside of him, built up habits inside, and a constant battle between right and wrong inside that caused him to fight me.
While I walked up to talk with him You were there. When he punched me in the face You were there. When I slapped him back You were there. When he kicked me in the stomach you were there and when I kicked him back You Yahweh were right there with us.  With my own power and immaturity I was trying to change someone, trying to snap someone out of it, out of their darkness. 
   Oh I was angry and shaking. So much love has been poured into his life here that I just couldn't understand his ways. I was so hurt for all that has happened to him, so hurt to see him acting out badly influencing helpless kids. Again and again I have witnessed him hurting others. I couldn't understand him. I want/wanted to punch Satan in the face and kick him down to the ground, but instead I fought a boy. I fought the boy that is in chains and bondage, who needs freedom and desperately needs Jesus. I know You Jesus are working in both him and I and keep breaking us down in our own ways to make us grow stronger in our own faith. But You give us the choice to accept You and it is up to us to decide what to do with what we know. It is up to us to decide which way to go. No one can make us, no one can decide for us. He needs to decide on his own.
   You Lord brought me down sitting in the dirt... messy, barefoot, and humbled before my King. Crying with burning tears in my eyes is where I met You. Angry, angry, angry at sin, at Satan's grip on so many of these kids lives... so much darkness. There sitting low in the dirt, in the tears, and in the honest pain You were given all control. Down there in the ground You reminded me of love. Strong love. You reminded me that my God will provide, provide every tool I need to love on this specific boy. You, Your love for us is more than enough. These things wont cripple me I put my hope in You. I trust You and You alone to help me break, with Your strong love, down the walls in his life. I trust Your love to tear him apart and make him new. I can do nothing on my own, but can do everything with You...Redeemer, Forgiver, Savior, Lover, Father, and our Healer. Your truly all we need. 
    This is all Yours... my life... I surrender. I give You my brokenness and my messed up nature. I ask that keep teaching me. I ask that You use me, its not much, but it is all that I have to give. I know You use the broken.
    Its the days like these, when I give up that is exactly what You have been waiting for. That is when You pick me up and hold me in Your arms. You wrap Yourself around us and there we can stay, in Your mighty everlasting arms
 
Pray for Jaime.
 

Friday, February 8, 2013

You are so good to me.

When not even really looking You show up. You confirm. You pursue.

This morning you shook me up, broke me down, filled me up and comforted me. I am in awe of You. You continue to amaze me. You ways are NOT my ways.

Matthew 14: 28-33 I've read many times. But today I knew exactly what You were speaking to me within the first second of reading Your Word. Wow, You are powerful and mighty. Still it has been hours later I have this thankful heart. I am especially thankful that our God continues to speak, He continues to confirm and re assure His truth. He is peace. His Presence is life, more life than anything we could muster up on our own. 

What is He saying to you?